Military attacks. The villagers refused,...

military attacks. The villagers refused, telling the soldiers in no uncertain terms that Chalatenango was their home, and that nothing could make them leave.

   With the impoverished and largely landless rural population suffering from regular air and ground attacks, accompanied by blockages of food supplies and medicines, it's no wonder that a flood of new campesino recruits are steadily joining up with the FMLN. In the cities a deteriorating economy and the draconian state repression are similarly driving more and more civilians into the ranks of the guerrillas. As one urban commando pointed out recently to a foreign reporter, "in some respects it's safer to incorporate and fight with the FMLN militias than it is to carry on the struggle in the popular movement, where the threat of being kidnapped or killed by government security forces is a daily reality."

Terror as a Way of Life

   As I accompany Bishop Gumbleton of Detroit and a U.S. church delegation through the still bloodstained rooms and courtyard of the Jesuit residences at the University of Central America (UCA), scene of the November 16, 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests and two women, I can't stop thinking about how North Americans don't seem that upset over the daily terror being carried out by the U.S. puppet regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala (to name only two of the many "death squad democracies" currently enjoying U.S. largess).

   As Bishop Gumbleton points out, standing in front of the bloodspattered outer wall of the faculty dormitory, {our Jesuit guide, John Cortina, explains to us that some of the dark stains on the wall are actually brain matter of the Jesuits who were shot here with exploding bullets): "There's no dif ference between the Jesuit massacre, Corral de Piedra, and the everyday terror in El Salvador. Without a cutoff of U.S. aid, this terror will continue indefinitely."

   Bishop Gumbleton, Father Jim Barnett, and the other clergy have just retumed from a harrowing two day journey to Chalatenango, where they twice defied Salvador an military troops who tried to block them from visiting the survivors of Corral de Piedra. Incidents of military repression like this, directed against the churches, have become commonplace. It's no wonder that religous workers and churchgoers have become so politicized and radicalized. Preaching from the altar, a few yards away from the walled-in tombs of the six Jesuits, in a memorial mass for the martyrs of Corral de Piedra, Bishop Gumbleton sums up the situation eloquently:

   "A survivor of the recent massacre in Chalatenango asked me if God had abandonad the people. And what could I teil him? It is my country that pays for the rockets and bombs that struck that small village. We North Americans must ask for forgiveness over and over again from the Salvadoran people. And we must struggle to stop all military aid to the Salvadoran armed forces. The blood of these martyrs truly is the seed of our hope. To honor their memories we must give up our power and our riches and join in their struggle for peace and social justice. We must join them and walk in trust with Jesus against the powers that be."

   Liberation theology is the most potent and widespread form of revolutionary ideology that exists in Latin America today. Needless to say, if Bishop Gumbleton had been preaching sermons like this in El Salvador last November, he probably would be reposing today in tomb number seven in the walls of the UCA student chapel.

Seeds of Hope

   For the second time today (Feb. 24), at my second memorial service, I found myself crying. A beautiful young woman from the IMU (Women's Institute) was delivering a funeral eulogy for 43 year-old Norma Guirola de Herrera - a poet, political activist, paramedic, and one of the most well-known leaders of the women's liberation movement in El Salvador. On the second day of the November FMLN offensive, Norma was captured while performing medical dudes for the wounded in the city of San Marcos. Accused of being a collaborator of the FMLN, Norma was taken to the El Zapote military base in S an Marcos where she was tortured and executed at point blank range, with gunshots to the face. Like many others. Norma's body was tossed into a mass grave by the soldiers.

   Shortly after Norma's execution, her 23-year old activist niece, Tania Guirola, was also killed by the army. Standing alongside Norma and Tania' s flower-draped gravestone in the cemetery, surrounded by a crowd of relatives and compañeros, a thin young woman raised her fist and shouted out that Norma and Tania are present in the struggles of the people - hasta la victoria (until victory). A relative of the family had explained to me earlier that Norma's and Tania's memorial service could not be held until today - three months after their assassinations - because it was considered to be too dangerous.

   All over El Salvador the opposition community are mourning their martyred comrades. At least 500 FMLN combatants - men, women, and children - were killed in the fighting, while even more non-combalants were killed in the aerial attacks or were summarily executed by the army. What seem like statistics from far away are experienced here as real tragedies - beautiful men, women, and children whose premature deaths will not be forgotten.

Postscript

   It's the day after the Nicaraguan elections. I'm standing, rather stunned, in the front office of CoMadres, the Mothers of the Disappeared and Assassinated. A grey-haired grandmother, barely five feet tall, points out to me the spot where my North American compañera, Brenda Hubbard, was wounded and nearly killed by shrapnel from a bomb planted by the Salvadoran military last October 31. In a room filled with animated children and their mothers, I admit to the Co-Madres grandmother that I am feeling depressed about the defeat of the Sandinistas in the Nicaraguan elections. "Many Nicaraguans voted with their stomachs, not their politics," she says, "pero aqui, nadie se rinde (but here, no one is surrendering)." The struggle continues.